China announced its intention to eliminate so-called “gangsters” and the party officials purportedly aiding them as Xi Jinping is poised to be re-elected to an unprecedented third term as general secretary, Chinese state-run media reported Monday.

The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) said it will “crush” so-called “gangsters” and their “protectors” in government as a part of the ongoing “100 Days Of Action” anti-crime campaign that began on June 25, Global Times reported. SPP’s crackdown against Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials is just the latest in a series of purges undertaken during Xi’s reign, which has seen more than 8.58 million alleged “criminal suspects” arrested since 2013.

Since taking power, Xi’s “anti-corruption” campaigns have netted high-profile officials such as the head of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the party secretary of Chongqing, the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, the director of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party and countless others, according to multiple sources.

Xi will stand for re-election during the 20th National Congress of the CCP at an undetermined date “sometime in the second half of 2022,” according to The Heritage Foundation. After removing presidential term limits in 2018, Xi now stands poised to serve an unprecedented third term and potentially remain in power indefinitely, NPR reported.

Critics of Xi’s “anti-corruption” campaigns, such as the Foreign Policy Research Institute, claim that there is a “correlation between indictments of high-level political figures and their political benefit to Xi.”

China’s latest crackdown was prompted by public outcry stemming from a June surveillance video that went viral depicting a group of men beating female diners in a barbecue restaurant in Tangshan, Global Times reported. After the women told the men to “go away” the men attacked the women using chairs and bottles, BBC reported.

The Ministry of Public Security also announced their intention to deploy 10 special “inspection teams” across China to “purify” public security departments at the local level on Tuesday, Global Times reported. The inspection teams are further tasked with urging provincial government leaders to “strengthen the implementation of political awareness” and to “see that party members’ responsibilities are fulfilled,” according to a Daily Caller News Foundation translation.

“The Chinese government needs to crush such crimes in a deeper and comprehensive way to further improve people’s sense of security,” Zhang Yiwu, a professor of Chinese literature at Peking University, told Global Times Monday.

The Chinese Embassy did not respond immediately to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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